


got no strings

by thespiritofregret



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (sort of), Getting Together, Human AU, M/M, Matchmaking, Mutual Pining, POV Deceit Sanders, Soulmate AU, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, dee is a bit of an idiot, just accept that dee is really good at reading people, oblivious idiots all around, relationship advice with dee, shakespeare comedy levels of love triangle, so is everyone really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 19:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespiritofregret/pseuds/thespiritofregret
Summary: Everyone in the world is convinced that strings connecting soulmates exist, and yet very few people in the world claim to be able to see them. Dee is firmly of the opinion that the entire soulmate system is a lie, but why expose it when it offers such enjoyable opportunities?In which Logan pines, Patton has a crush, Roman flirts, Virgil has a romantic crisis and it falls to Dee to do something about all this. As usual.





	got no strings

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before DWIT so Remus isn’t here.  
I literally wrote this because I got a slightly ridiculous idea and then couldn’t forget about it so

‘We’ve been together for quite some time now,’ said the woman, leaning forwards across the table. ‘We think we must belong together, but it’d be good to be sure, wouldn’t it?’ The man sitting beside her nodded, an affectionate half-smile on his face as he looked at her.

‘Well,’ said the figure seated across the table from the couple. They were mostly shrouded in darkness, lit only by flickering candlelight that glimmered in their eyes, and there was an enigmatic tilt to their lips. ‘If you really want to know, you have only to ask.’

The man and woman exchanged a nervous glance. The man nodded almost imperceptibly and the woman turned back to the person across the table.

‘Are we soulmates?’ she asked.

For a moment there was silence as the figure studied them. The man and woman waited, gripping each other’s hands tightly beneath the table. Then the figure inclined their head.

‘Yes,’ they said.

The couple’s faces broke into matching relieved smiles. The woman leaned across to press a quick, delighted kiss to the man’s lips.

‘Thank you _so much_,’ she said to the person across the table, still grinning widely. The person smiled back at her.

‘My pleasure,’ they said.

The man and woman got up and hurried out, fingers still interlinked, smiling and seemingly unable to take their eyes off each other. The other figure remained at the table. Once the door had swung shut they reached up to flick on the lights and began blowing out the candles.

‘Job well done,’ they muttered under their breath, the hint of a smirk on their face.

Dee didn’t believe in soulmates. The idea that some people were destined to be together was ridiculous, and the idea of invisible strings that indicated this even more so. People who claimed to be able to see the strings were incredibly rare, and yet everyone seemed convinced that they were the source of absolute truth on relationships. In Dee’s opinion, they were simply people who had seen an excellent chance to make money out of doing essentially nothing. That was in no way a negative judgment on them. After all, he was one of them.

Calling him a fraud seemed unfair, in his opinion. He was easily perceptive enough to tell when a relationship was going well and when it might be time to end it, so most of the people he claimed as soulmates would be perfectly happy, and most of those he didn’t were better off apart. He was the best suited person for the job possible, except, of course, that he couldn’t actually see the strings at all.

He blew out the last candle, set it back in its place and left the room. The couple he’d just seen had been his last customers for the day, so he was free to go now. That was one of the good things about this job – he got to decide when he was working and when he was closed. Other good things included being able to help other people figure out what exactly they wanted and the dramatics he could get up to with the candles and the smoke. Dee had something of an overdeveloped flair for the dramatic.

Dee’s flat was only a short walk away. When he arrived he found his flatmate, Virgil, lying upside-down on the sofa, staring into space.

‘What’s up?’ asked Dee, unperturbed. This happened fairly often, and he was used to it. Virgil blinked and his eyes refocused, darting around the room until they settled on Dee.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.

‘_Hello_, Dee,’ filled in Dee sarcastically. ‘_Nice to see you_, Dee. _How was your day,_ Dee?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Virgil, rolling his eyes. ‘You’re back and not dead and that’s all that matters really. What’s for dinner?’

‘Nothing until you tell me what you’re worrying about this time.’

Virgil protested half-heartedly, but they’d been friends for long enough that both of them knew he’d give in and explain himself eventually. Dee sat down on the sofa beside him and stared him down, mismatched eyes glittering, until Virgil sighed.

‘It’s that guy I work with,’ he said. ‘Logan, remember?’

‘How could I forget?’ asked Dee. The answer, of course, was that he absolutely never would. For the past week Virgil had been pining over the unknown Logan so loudly that Dee was tempted to declare them soulmates just so he’d actually ask the guy out. That would be a bad call, though, considering Dee hadn’t actually met this Logan and had no idea whether he and Virgil would work out. He’d risk a lot of things on his soulmate charade, but his best friend’s happiness wasn’t one of them – at least, not until Dee had more information.

‘He and I are quite good friends now,’ said Virgil. ‘He invited me to go out someplace with him and his friends in a few days and I said I’d see if I was free.’

‘And are you?’ asked Dee.

‘Yes, obviously – come on, you know exactly how often I make plans, I’m always free.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘There isn’t one.’ Virgil sighed again. ‘It’s just – I mean, what if I go and then I make a fool of myself? What if all his friends hate me and then by proxy he decides he never wants to speak to me again? What if they notice my giant crush on him and tell him about it? What if –’

‘Slow down,’ Dee interrupted. He knew better than to let Virgil talk himself into a never-ending spiral of what-ifs. ‘Do you know anything about these people you’re meeting?’

‘I mean, a bit. Logan talks about them. Their names are Patton and Roman and the three of them have been good friends for ages. I mean, _ages_. They probably don’t want me like, breaking into their friend circle or whatever –’

‘So Logan likes them and thinks highly of them?’ asked Dee. Virgil nodded.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you trust Logan’s opinion?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Do you think Logan would ask you to meet them if he didn’t think you’d get along and didn’t want you there?’

‘No, but –’

‘Then you have nothing to worry about.’ Dee grinned. ‘Logan seems to think they’ll like you, and you talk enough about how smart Logan is that I think we have to believe him. By that logic, the four of you will all get along great. Besides, you know if anyone upsets you I’ll personally break their legs, so I don’t think you’re the one in danger here.’ The corners of Virgil’s mouth quirked up. Dee gave him a smug smirk.

‘So you think I should go,’ said Virgil.

‘Obviously you should go,’ said Dee. ‘It’ll be fine. You’ll see. Anyway, you have to take my advice in this situation, I’m meant to be the expert. And to pre-empt the question, if and when you want to know if you should ask Logan out, the answer will be ‘yes, absolutely, go for it’.’

‘There are so many ways the situation could change that would make that the wrong answer,’ said Virgil, raising his eyebrows. Dee raised his own eyebrows higher. Virgil had a habit of sabotaging himself, and Dee had long since made it his job to stop that from happening. He hoped this would work out. Virgil deserved to be in a happy relationship, and it was about time he got one.

The thought made something twist oddly in Dee’s chest, but he ignored that.

‘How’d it go?’ asked Dee a few days later when Virgil appeared in the doorway. Virgil didn’t give a coherent answer, only collapsed face-first onto the sofa with a groan. Dee frowned. He hadn’t thought there was any possibility of it going _that_ badly.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, shaking Virgil’s shoulder gently. ‘Didn’t you like them?’ Virgil groaned again. Dee rolled him over. ‘Well?’

‘Of _course_ I liked them,’ said Virgil irritably, refusing to look Dee in the eye. ‘They were great. Lovely. Excellent people. Couldn’t ask for nicer people. Unfairly nice, really.’

‘Then what’s bothering you so much?’

Virgil just grabbed a cushion and covered his face with it, mumbling something inaudible. Dee pried the cushion out of his fingers and narrowed his eyes.

‘Ugh,’ said Virgil, squinting. ‘Turn the lights down.’ Dee complied, then made his way back over and resumed trying to stare the truth out of Virgil.

‘Logan doesn’t like me,’ said Virgil eventually. Dee analysed that statement and came up with about twenty different possible interpretations of it, ranging from Virgil being overdramatic to Logan and Virgil getting into a full-on argument and deciding never to interact again. Not all of them were particularly feasible, but you never know.

‘Doesn’t like you in general,’ he asked, ‘or doesn’t like you like you like him?’

‘Second one,’ mumbled Virgil. So far so good. That narrowed most of the options down to Virgil overanalysing something one of them had said, and it likely meant Dee didn’t have to actually fight someone on Virgil’s behalf.

‘What makes you think that?’ he asked. Dee knew that Virgil tended to assume people couldn’t possibly feel romantically towards him, and he also personally felt that this was ridiculous, because why _wouldn’t_ someone like Virgil? He was one of the best people Dee knew. His humour could be a bit dark, but then so was Dee’s, and at any rate everyone needed a bit of dark humour in their lives. And Virgil was attractive. Objectively. Anyway.

‘He’s in love with Patton,’ said Virgil, and _okay_, whatever Dee had been expecting, it hadn’t exactly been that.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said, slightly startled, and then, ‘Really? How do you know? Are they dating?’

‘No,’ said Virgil. ‘It’s just obvious. Really, really obvious. _Ugh_.’ He closed his eyes again and tried to burrow further into the sofa.

Well. Virgil could be exaggerating, but Dee couldn’t necessarily know that without meeting the people in question. It was best to assume he wasn’t. Damn it. Dee had really thought this could work out well.

‘Other than that,’ he said, ‘did it go well?’ Virgil nodded without reopening his eyes.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I liked all of them a lot. They liked me, I think, or at least they didn’t make it obvious that they didn’t. They invited me to hang out with them again. It was nice.’

‘Are you going to go out with them again?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed it. I do want to be friends with them. I really do.’ Virgil sighed. ‘I just… I feel like I should be mad at him, you know? Patton, I mean. But I can’t. He’s too nice for that. He’s really sweet and he makes these puns that are so awful they’re good and his hair’s really fluffy and when he smiles he has these adorable dimples and – _oh_.’ Virgil broke off, eyes opening and then going alarmingly wide. ‘Oh no. This is not fair. This is so unbelievably unfair. I can’t get crushes on _both _of them. That can’t possibly be allowed. Are you _kidding_ me?’

Of all the directions Virgil’s somewhat chaotic love life could have gone in, this was not one Dee had seen coming. He wanted briefly to laugh, but he had a feeling that would upset Virgil. It was times like these that he was glad he was immune to this kind of insanity. Dee had never felt that way towards anyone, as far as he knew, and the more he saw of it the less he wanted to.

He did really want to see these people Virgil was going on about for himself, just to make sure they were worth it. But he wouldn’t go looking for them. It wasn’t his place to meddle.

A few weeks had passed, and Dee’s no-meddling resolve had completely expired.

It wasn’t his _fault_, he insisted to himself as he walked through the park, trying to find an inconspicuous place to stand. Virgil couldn’t just keep on telling him everything and asking him for advice and then expect him not to get curious. He was a naturally inquisitive person. And sure, people tended not to like it when he manipulated things, but if things worked out well, then why did it matter? He messed with other people’s relationships for a _living_. He was only trying to help. It wasn’t as if he was going to do any damage.

Virgil and his group were out having a picnic in the park, which was why Dee was there. It was a sunny day, which unfortunately meant he couldn’t disguise himself in thick coats and scarves over his face, but he was still easily capable of blending in. Only Virgil had any chance of recognising him, anyway, and Dee had known Virgil long enough to have a lot of practice hiding from him.

He leaned back against a tree and watched the four from a distance. Virgil had told him enough about them all that he was able to put a name to each of them. Logan, Patton, Roman. Dee didn’t have to watch too long to come to a conclusion. Clearly Virgil had been right about Logan’s feelings for Patton – Virgil hadn’t been kidding about it being blatantly obvious. Patton himself was tucked up next to Roman, watching him with an oddly affectionate look, and Roman was tossing words back and forth with Virgil with an intensity that made it look… less like friendly banter and more like outrageous flirting.

Well.

Dee hadn’t thought love squares like this could possibly exist outside of rom-coms and _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, but apparently he’d been wrong. This was ridiculous. How had these four even managed to get into this situation? Were they all really _that_ oblivious to each other’s feelings?

He sighed deeply and tried to figure out all the conflicting relationships in his head. Virgil liked Logan and Patton. Logan liked Patton a _lot_. Patton probably liked Roman. Roman was flirting with Virgil. Had Virgil noticed this? Almost certainly not – Virgil found it difficult to believe someone else might like him at the best of times, and he was far too preoccupied with his Logan-Patton problem to pay proper attention. Had anyone _else_ noticed this? Patton probably hadn’t, or he’d be a lot more concerned. Whether Logan had or not was mostly irrelevant, although it might lead him to assume Roman and Virgil were going to get together and therefore fail to notice Virgil’s thing for him. Dee pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to take a _lot_ of working out.

Dee was _not_ stalking anyone. Absolutely not. He was just… keeping an eye out, that was all. He had good reason to want to know what was going on. If he wasn’t probably informed, how was he meant to give Virgil the right advice? He could rely on Virgil to tell him major things, but he needed to keep watch for a little while in order to get a proper feel for the situation. Especially considering how complicated it was.

Over time, he’d drawn a few more conclusions. The first of these was that Virgil _did_ like Roman back, though he hadn’t noticed yet and probably wouldn’t for some time. Roman had to be getting a little frustrated, what with the amount of flirting he was doing that was getting him nowhere. The second conclusion was that Roman did like Patton as well, but not as much or as obviously as he liked Virgil. The third was that Patton spent an awful lot of time with Logan for someone who was obviously completely oblivious to the other’s feelings as well as those that he might have himself. The fourth was that, quite frankly, all of them had varying degrees of feelings for each other, but the stronger degrees never matched up properly. Dee had no idea what to do about it.

He had to admit Virgil had good taste. He had not seen so many attractive people with such good characters in the same place in a long while. People like that were hard to find. And they all complemented each other as well. Their different characteristics brought out the best in each other. If they didn’t all at least stay friends for the rest of time Dee was going to throw a fit.

Sometimes he wondered what would happen if he joined the group, if he would fit, if there was a gap in the right shape that he could fill. He didn’t think about it long. No doubt Virgil would introduce him to them all sooner or later, but it felt strange to consider all the same. It made his chest ache the same way it did when he tried to figure out which of them belonged with who. That made his head ache too, eventually. There was far too much to untangle there.

‘So you will never guess what’s happened,’ said Virgil one evening as soon as Dee opened the door. Dee raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’

‘Patton and Roman are dating.’

Dee mentally frowned and conceded a bet to some other part of his brain. He’d thought Roman would be the first to make a move and ask Virgil out, but clearly he’d been wrong. He was still fairly confident, though, that neither Logan nor Virgil would ever have done anything. Logan had the look about him of someone who’d already been pining for years, and Virgil still had yet to figure out _who_ he wanted to date in the first place.

‘That’s new,’ he said, which was a barefaced lie, but Dee had always been a good liar.

‘I know, right?’ Virgil flopped down onto the sofa. These weird relationship consultation nights on the sofa were becoming a regular thing.

‘So how did this happen?’ asked Dee. Virgil shrugged.

‘Patton said he asked Roman out a couple of weeks ago,’ he said. ‘They’ve been on a few dates. They waited to see if it was working before telling Logan and I about it.’ Dee winced. He could only imagine how Logan had taken that.

‘How’d that conversation go?’ he asked. Virgil frowned.

‘Well, obviously we were both very congratulatory,’ he said. ‘I mean, they clearly like each other a lot, and they’ll be great for each other. It’s a good relationship. I think Lo was upset, because of course he would be, but he’d never say so. He’ll be alright eventually. I’ll try to keep an eye on him.’

‘And how do _you_ feel about this?’ asked Dee.

‘Weird,’ said Virgil, ‘but then I’ve been feeling weird the whole time. I think they’ll be very happy together, and I’m happy for them. I’m a bit jealous, maybe, but not the normal kind of jealous. Like, I’m not mad at Roman. It’s a bit like how I wasn’t mad at Patton for Logan liking him. I’m still kind of jealous, I guess. Either way, this settles a lot.’

‘And are you jealous of Patton?’ asked Dee. Virgil gave him an odd look.

‘Of Patton? No… I don’t think so… I… well, why would I be?’ Dee just shrugged and added another tally to his mental board of _how in denial is Virgil about liking Roman_.

Virgil had a point, in that this did settle a lot. As long as Logan could get over Patton, the whole thing could work out fine. Dee would have to see if there was anything to do about that. Not that he’d manipulate the situation, of course. Virgil would kill him if he found out. Then again, Virgil didn’t necessarily have to find out.

He sighed. He wanted all of them to be happy. Was that so much to ask? He wasn’t quite sure _why_ he was so concerned about their happiness, but thinking too deeply into that made his stomach try to tie itself in knots, so he didn’t. It was like that joke, the one where the patient tells the doctor that it hurts when he moves something a certain way and the doctor replies ‘well, don’t do that’. It sometimes hurt to think about certain things, so Dee just didn’t.

That policy had never failed him before.

A couple of weeks later, Dee peered through the peephole that led from his working room to the waiting room and was startled to see Patton and Roman outside.

As a rule, Dee always kept his clients waiting. It gave him an opportunity to spy on them beforehand and deduce what to say to them when they asked the inevitable question they wanted answered. It also meant that he got to see how committed they were to getting answers and how likely they were to take out any irritation caused by impatience on each other. He didn’t want to give an answer that might get someone hurt. Sure, he was entirely in this for the thrill of lying to people’s faces and having them believe him, but it wasn’t just that. He didn’t care about who was whose supposed soulmate. He just wanted to see people end up happy, and he matched them to the best of his ability.

Patton and Roman, however, Dee already knew enough about. He didn’t necessarily know what answer to give them, but he didn’t think spending longer watching them was going to help, so he opened the door and waved them in.

‘Good evening,’ he said, sitting down in his usual spot and motioning for them to sit as well. ‘So, tell me. Who are you and what brings you here?’ He always asked his customers this. The more information he had the better.

‘I’m Patton,’ said Patton, ‘and this is Roman.’ He gave Dee a nervous smile. ‘We haven’t been together all that long, but we’ve both been quite confused about our feelings for each other and some of our other friends, so we thought it would be best to just find out for certain.’ Dee swallowed a laugh. _Confused is an understatement._

‘Confused how?’ he inquired. Patton shuffled uncertainly.

‘Both of us have had romantic feelings towards our other friends before,’ said Roman, ‘and some of those have lingered.’ Good that Roman was willing to be straight with him. ‘We think that knowing if we’re soulmates will help us figure out whether this relationship is working or whether we should pursue some of our other feelings.’

This was part of the reason why Dee didn’t like the concept of soulmates. People were forever wondering whether the person they were with was the one they were ‘destined’ to be with, and it could blow holes in perfectly good relationships. Couples would go to find out if they were soulmates both completely in love with the other, and then break up because it turned out they weren’t. Even if they found their respective ‘soulmates’ and lived happily ever after, who’s to say they couldn’t have been equally happy together? The whole thing gave Dee mixed feelings towards whoever had come up with soulmates. On the one hand, he respected them for making such nonsense so widely believed, and he couldn’t help but love the idea simply for being so ridiculous yet so pervasive. On the other, they might have ruined thousands of wonderful relationships, and that idea made him resentful.

Dee never told couples who were both equally and deeply in love that they weren’t soulmates. He refused to be responsible for such a thing. The only times he claimed couples weren’t soulmates was when the relationship was noticeably unbalanced in either feelings or power or when one partner was using it to get control over the other. This was what made Dee’s observation of his clients so important to him. There would be consequences for choosing wrong.

‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘as they sssssay, asssssk and you shall receive.’ He didn’t notice the hiss creeping into his voice, an old speech tic of his that he’d thought he’d gotten under control a while ago but still came out now and again. Both Patton and Roman did and looked slightly uneasy.

‘Are we soulmates?’ asked Roman.

Dee needed an answer. It was obvious to him that they cared for each other a lot, and he didn’t want to break up the only relationship that seemed to be functioning successfully. These two staying together would hopefully make them happy and give Virgil a chance with Logan, which had been the original purpose of the entire situation anyway. That was assuming Logan got over Patton, though, which wasn’t exactly a certainty. It might be better if Patton and Roman broke up so that Patton and Logan could get together, as well as Virgil and Roman. Then again, Virgil still had yet to admit to himself that he liked Roman, so Patton and Logan getting together might upset him. Dee ran through all the prospective relationships in his mind again.

It was best not to interfere. Usually Dee just thought this to himself and then interfered anyway, but in this situation he didn’t actually have a solution yet, so the best choice was the one that changed the situation the least. In this case, that was to say yes. Well, actually, it was to say nothing and kick them out of his room, but Dee really did not want to do that. This was his first actual interaction with Patton and Roman, and for reasons unknown he wanted to make a good impression.

‘…Yes,’ he said.

This seemed to be an acceptable answer to Patton and Roman, because they both smiled so widely that Dee was briefly worried. They thanked Dee quite thoroughly before leaving. Dee always found it quite funny when customers thanked him, because he was making it all up and also because they were paying him and that was gratitude enough as far as he was concerned. Still, he supposed it was good manners, and something warmed in him at hearing it from Patton and Roman.

This could work.

He really hoped it would work.

‘Oh my _god_,’ said Virgil, practically flinging himself onto the sofa. ‘This is a _disaster_.’ Dee, who had been in the kitchen peeling potatoes, sighed and came over to perch himself on the arm of the sofa.

‘Please tell me you and your friends haven’t ruined all the romantic progress you’ve made thus far.’

‘We may have,’ Virgil admitted. ‘_I_ haven’t done anything, I promise. I’m doing my best not to be self-deprecating or self-sabotaging. You don’t have to listen to me. I know I must be annoying you with all this.’

‘Tell me everything _right now_,’ Dee demanded. Virgil laughed.

‘Okay, so it’s like this. Logan and Patton went out someplace this morning together, just the two of them. I think Pat’s been worried about Logan because he’s been acting different, which is just because Lo’s finally been getting over him. Anyway, they ran into this woman and they were talking to her and she was saying they were cute together, which must have been uncomfortable enough, but then she told them that it’s wonderful to be two soulmates so clearly in love.’

Ah.

‘As you can imagine, they freaked out a bit,’ Virgil continued. ‘Because Patton and Roman are soulmates, or so they say, so for Patton and Logan to be soulmates would always come as a bit of a shock, especially for Logan trying to get over Patton. We don’t even know whether the woman could see strings or whether she just made an inconvenient assumption.’ _The latter_, Dee thought, and scowled. People’s assumptions could ruin anything. He had no patience for this.

‘Logan and Patton tried to talk it over, obviously,’ said Virgil. ‘Only that kind of escalated into Logan telling Patton how he felt about him and then running off while Pat just stood there in shock. Logan came and panicked about this to me and I did a terrible job of being comforting because I am not as good at dealing with that type of thing as you are and I tend to just make things worse. Patton presumably told Roman and now everyone’s being incredibly awkward with each other and not talking properly, so in short everything’s gone terribly wrong.’

God, this really was exactly like some kind of soap opera. Dee had always been torn between watching with popcorn and finally losing it and doing something, but he was pretty sure he was swinging further and further into the latter. They should be happy. They deserved to be happy. He was not having one woman’s assumptions ruin one of the healthiest and best groups of friends he’d ever encountered. This needed to be dealt with already.

Maybe when it finally was he’d be able to stop thinking about the four of them so much.

‘Okay, I’m stepping in,’ he said. ‘Here’s an idea. Get your trio of crushes –’ he didn’t even bother pretending Virgil’s thing for Roman didn’t exist ‘– and take all four of you to see someone who says they can see strings. Find out once and for all what’s going on.’ As long as they picked someone with some common sense, they’d hopefully end up with some functional relationships. Dee had to hope.

‘That,’ said Virgil slowly, ‘is actually an excellent idea.’ Of course it was. Dee’s advice was always excellent.

‘Can we come by yours tomorrow?’ Virgil continued, and Dee suddenly had to struggle very hard not to swear out loud.

He’d briefly forgotten that he did, in fact, make a living out of supposedly looking at people’s strings and that Virgil would, in fact, immediately go to him for help. He was an idiot. Well, he couldn’t very well back out now.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow evening?’ Virgil nodded with a smile.

‘Thanks, Dee.’

Dee waved the comment off and went back into the kitchen. This was a problem. He’d had enough trouble figuring out what to say just to Patton and Roman. What was he meant to say to sort out all four of them? Not to mention he couldn’t contradict anything he’d previously said. Trying to figure out which of these four belonged together without the aid of mystical non-existent soulmate strings was a bit like trying to untangle a giant, knotted ball of yarn where all the threads were invisible.

A thought struck him. He frowned for a moment, and then it clicked into place inside his head. It made sense of everything at once. Dee wondered how he’d never thought of it before.

He grinned suddenly, sharp and alive. He knew exactly what to do.

When Virgil, Logan, Patton and Roman arrived in Dee’s waiting room the next day, Dee waved them in before they even had a chance to make their appointment and pay.

‘This looks… different than it did before,’ commented Roman. ‘What happened to all the smoke and candles and mystery?’ Dee shrugged and took his feet down from where they’d been propped up on the table.

‘I can’t very well try my usual dramatics on Virgil, can I?’ he said. ‘I’d never live it down.’

‘Damn right you wouldn’t,’ muttered Virgil. Dee narrowed his eyes at him.

‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m Dee, Virgil’s long-suffering roommate, and you three are the infamous Logan, Patton and Roman. Pleasure to meet you.’

‘Infamous?’ asked Patton. Dee rolled his eyes.

‘You think Virgil hasn’t been narrating all your interactions to me with varying levels of stress over the last few months? Honestly, what’s a best friend for if not listening to your romantic problems and giving you dubious advice?’

‘I didn’t think Virgil had much direct involvement with the romantic problems,’ said Roman. Virgil glared at Dee, who only rolled his eyes again, but harder.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Virge, you knew it would come up eventually. Yeah, he’s got as many as you do. Which, I believe, is what we’re here to deal with.’

‘I’ve seen you before,’ said Logan suddenly. ‘Several times, actually. Have you been watching us?’

Dee blinked. He hadn’t expected any of them to actually pick up on that, but he supposed if someone was going to notice it would be Logan. The man was scarily observant. He would have been impressed if he hadn’t been too busy figuring out how to explain himself.

‘Maybe a little,’ he said, holding his gloved hands up in surrender. ‘Not in a creepy way. I’m just naturally curious. Someone had to try to figure out what was between the lot of you, because clearly none of you were going to do it. Anyway, shall we get to the point?’

‘Alright,’ said Virgil. ‘You know full well what we’re doing here because you were the one who came up with it in the first place.’ Dee refrained from mentioning that he wouldn’t have made the suggestion if he’d remembered what his own job was. ‘This is frankly awkward, so can you just tell us?’ His eyes said he was a lot more stressed about this than he was letting on. Dee gave him a reassuring half-smile.

‘You’re all soulmates,’ he said.

There was a long, startled silence during which every person in the room made eye contact with every other person before turning back to Dee.

‘What?’ said Roman eventually. Dee resisted the urge to laugh at the shock on his face.

‘You’re all soulmates,’ he said again. ‘It is possible to have more than one soulmate, you know.’ Dee was sure there were people out there who denied that, but he really couldn’t care less about traditional soulmate beliefs. ‘Besides, I _have_ been paying attention. It’s been obvious to me that you all like each other to varying degrees, even if you apparently have yet to notice that yourselves.’

‘You didn’t tell me this,’ said Virgil, scowling. Dee shrugged.

‘I don’t interfere, remember? You get mad at me when I spy on things and pull strings, so I’ve been trying to do it less.’ The truth of that was debatable, but it wasn’t as though Dee’s intentions were ever _bad_.

‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘For once, I am telling the truth.’ About them all liking each other, if not about the soulmates. ‘Does the idea make you uncomfortable?’

‘I mean…’ said Logan slowly. ‘It is not something I considered, but now that I do… I think you may be right.’

Of course Dee was right. He’d built a career on being right about people’s feelings for each other. Why would he have lost his touch now?

Logan, Patton, Virgil and Roman all got together, and pretty quickly it became clear that they were really happy about it. Of course, this meant Dee did end up being good friends with all of his best friend’s boyfriends. The five of them spent a lot of time together. Dee felt like he might be supposed to feel odd about that, what with fifth-wheeling them and all, but he didn’t. It was nice. He liked all of them – had done from the moment he’d first seen them, really – and he was glad to find that he did fit in with them perfectly well. It sometimes bothered him when they were all acting particularly romantic towards each other, but he assumed that was normal. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like it. This was what he’d been trying to achieve the whole time. Even if it hadn’t so much as gotten them all off his mind as dug them even further into it. It didn’t feel perfect, but then nothing ever was.

They went out for dinner one evening – there were date nights and then there were friendly nights out, and this, by Dee’s involvement in it, was one of the latter – and when the waitress came to their table she frowned at Logan and Patton for a moment and then said, ‘I think I’ve met you before.’

‘Yes,’ said Logan, because he seemed to have the strange ability to remember every face he’d ever seen. ‘I think Patton and I met you briefly?’

‘Oh, yes! I remember that.’ Dee quickly deduced that this must be the assumption-making woman that had propelled the whole situation forwards to this point. He wasn’t sure whether to slap her or thank her.

‘Are you guys all dating?’ asked the waitress, and Roman replied yes, which was mostly true. Dee decided against correcting it. It wouldn’t bother him if someone were to think he was with these four. He couldn’t think of anyone he’d _rather_ be dating.

‘Wow,’ said the waitress. ‘That’s great. Honestly, you’re all so lucky. It’s almost unfair for any person to have four soulmates each.’

‘Actually,’ said Logan, because he couldn’t leave any kind of logical mistake well enough alone, ‘since there are four of us, we each only have three soulmates. It’s a common deductive misstep.’ The waitress frowned.

‘Huh,’ she said. ‘But there are five of you, so surely you have four each? I mean, I can see strings, and I’m sure each one of you has four.’

‘_What?_’ said Dee.

This made very little sense. Dee had been under the impression that the only people who claimed to see soulmate strings were those who were using it to make money or trouble. It didn’t make sense for a waitress to make something up about her customers just like that.

Unless, of course, she was telling the truth.

While Dee had been untangling this in his head, every other pair of eyes at the table had snapped to him instantly, and there were now several things being said at once.

‘Why didn’t you tell us you were our soulmate too?’ asked Patton.

‘What do you mean, _what_?’ spluttered Virgil. ‘Of all of us, the only person who could possibly have known this is you.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ said Dee flatly, not really processing all the other questions being asked. ‘There’s no way this soulmate scam has been real the whole time.’

‘What do you _mean_, there’s no way this has been real?’ screeched Roman. ‘You can’t not believe in _soulmates_!’

‘Will you all _be quiet_!’ snapped Logan, and everyone fell silent.

‘Now,’ Logan continued once the table was dead quiet. The waitress looked between them and decided to leave them to it. Logan turned to Dee. ‘Explain.’

‘I’m not sure what you think I can explain,’ said Dee, head still spinning a bit. ‘I have literally no idea what’s going on right now.’ He’d barely gotten past _soulmates are real_ and was just beginning to touch on _oh my god these four are my soulmates_. He needed some time to think this over.

‘Explain,’ said Logan, ‘why despite being able to see soulmate strings, you didn’t tell us we were your soulmates and seem surprised by the existence of soulmates in general.’ Dee laughed. His brain hadn’t quite caught up yet, but he was far enough along to realise that this was a ridiculous situation and that it was entirely his fault.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That. Well. I don’t believe in soulmates.’ He frowned. ‘Didn’t.’

‘But you can _see strings_,’ said Roman disbelievingly.

‘About that,’ said Dee. ‘As it happens, I can’t.’

There was solid silence around the whole table. Dee saw no way of getting rid of it other than to continue talking.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I thought this was nonsense. I thought some random person claimed they could tell who belonged with who to try to make money or something, and then the idea blew up so a load of people picked it up and ran with it. And I thought this was _brilliant_, the way something like that could become such a massive part of culture now, so I wanted in on it, because I appreciate these things and I think lying like that is an art form all of its own. I get away with it by being excellent at reading people and figuring out what they really want, and honestly being convincing is my greatest talent. I’m one hell of a con artist.’

He finished his slightly messy explanation and looked around the table. For a moment the silence continued. Everyone was staring. Dee fought the urge to curl up and dive under the table.

‘But you got the four of us together,’ said Patton, confused. Dee laughed.

‘Well, _yeah_,’ he said. ‘All four of you were pining so obviously people the _other side of the world_ could see it. Like, I pride myself on being able to read people, but in your case literally anyone could have figured it out. Except for you yourselves, apparently, because no offence, but you four are some of the most oblivious people I have ever had the pleasure to meet.’ That was met with another long silence.

‘I don’t mess with people, you know,’ said Dee, panicking slightly. ‘I don’t break up couples who are happy and I don’t tell people who don’t love each other in a functional, healthy way that they belong together. I’m _careful_. It does matter to me where they end up.’

‘You,’ said Virgil eventually, ‘are an absolute _idiot_.’

‘Well, I didn’t know that until _now_,’ said Dee defensively, and then Roman burst out laughing.

‘I’m sorry,’ he spluttered when he was finally coherent enough to talk. ‘This is just hilarious, oh my _god_, Dee, how long have you been doing this?’

‘A while,’ muttered Dee.

‘You told me you didn’t have a soulmate,’ said Virgil accusingly. Dee shrugged.

‘It seemed like the easiest thing to say at the time?’ Virgil heaved a long-suffering sigh.

‘You do realise,’ he said, ‘that had you had the common sense to tell me pretty much anything other than that, I would have asked you out _years_ ago.’ Dee snapped his head around to look at Virgil so fast he cricked his neck and winced.

‘I’m sorry?’ he said. Virgil rolled his eyes.

‘I had a crush on you for literal years. I assumed you were aromantic since you had no soulmate and never showed any particular interest in anyone. Part of the reason my thing with Logan was so important to me was because I thought I was finally getting over you.’

‘Why does that matter?’ asked Dee. There was a creeping feeling somewhere in his chest that was slowly making it clear to him that it did in fact matter a _lot_, but it wasn’t yet awake enough to explain itself. Virgil rolled his eyes again, so much so that Dee worried they might roll back too far and get permanently stuck there.

‘Please tell me,’ he said, ‘that you’re not so far in denial that you can’t admit to liking me having already found out that all five of us are soulmates.’

As a matter of fact, Dee had been that far in denial, but that sentence clarified a lot. He thought back over his recent interactions with the four of them, considered the odd feelings that seeing them together caused in him. He remembered the tight feeling in his chest that had eased a little when Patton and Roman had thanked him. He remembered thinking that _objectively_, they all had excellent taste in men. He remembered being singularly confused as to why anyone would ever _not_ want to date Virgil. He remembered encouraging Virgil to go for it with Logan, before he’d even met any of the three relative newcomers, and the way something in his stomach had twisted.

‘_Oh_,’ he said. ‘That… explains a lot.’ All four of the others were watching him, looking somewhat amused. Dee paused for a minute to process, and then swore loudly. Roman shrieked and covered Patton’s ears. Patton himself seemed mostly unbothered, but Dee supposed it was the thought that counted.

‘I am screwed,’ said Dee flatly. ‘Oh my god, I am _so_ screwed.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Logan matter-of-factly. ‘You do realise you’re practically dating us all already?’

  


When the waitress apparently judged it safe to return to the table, she was greeted with five conflicting exclamations of gratitude and, after the meal, a very large tip.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not convinced I have the characterisation of anyone in this right but I like the story as a whole so I figured I’d post it anyway.  
Tell me if you like it I guess?


End file.
